Four for Just One
1 What use, what reason, can there be In loving like this, where there is No certain promise of equal return? But expressed, written out like this,…
A Thousand Ships: A Poetic Trilogy
Song for a Myrmidon A thousand ships sail with you my son To a foreign land and endless beaches of sand. My arms I gave you when…
Appalachian Morning
In Memory of Willmoore Kendall They live here, these forlorn people—no riches to relinquish; their dawn no different than any other’s on this morning. But what…
To the Valley Beneath Beacon Rock
If we’re waiting east of Eden, Then heading west just makes good sense. There, the days of August evens Lie gentle on a valley fenced By Beacon…
In a Dry and Fiery Season
He holds back the waters and there is drought; He sends them forth and they overwhelm the land -Job 12:15 There hasn’t been a gust of…
With Pedro Romero before the Bull
He’s not seen two decades of suns, His skin is brown and blistered with memory; Our companion nervously folds his fingers, Pedro Romero buttons up his green…
Hedgelaying
Instead of a fence, we laid a hedge: not shrubbery you’d find in magazines, but a breathing barrier of rods and pleachers brought together to keep the…
Man’s Conquest of Home
Oh, little mountain valley, Narrow as a twig. How much you have changed, And how cruelly you have been bent. Once you were quiet and sleepy, Your…
Salt Stone Sweet
Come listen, listen, listen To this tale I have to tell. Come listen to this tale Of a village with the strangest well. Come every one of…
The black hat
There’s no forgiveness in this scalpel scoring my forehead. I’m a pumpkin shell carefully, firmly sliced open, the sound inside my head like a tearing, a blackbird…
The Pont Mirabeau
Under the pont Mirabeau flows the Seine With it our loves And strange to be minded Joy follows always after pain Let night come…
The Dragon
When you first looked up at the stars And saw the art of my wings flying free Did you dream about you and me Traveling to worlds…